I like to think that, deep down, people are generally good. The problem with life, however, is that people don’t always show this inner goodness. Some people just never show it. Others wear it on their sleeves. Fortunately, I was not only able to meet one of these outwardly good people, but to also befriend him.

            It was early on in the sixth grade when I first met this guy. After school one day, I was waiting for my mom to give me a ride home. I figured I had enough time, so I sat down in front of my locker and started doing some homework. As I sat there, I realized that only a few lockers away there was another kid doing the same thing I was. At that time, I had no idea who he was, and thought nothing of him.

            After a few days of the same thing, he came over to me and asked me if I had an extra pencil. I gave him one and he started to walk away, but turned around and said, “Oh, and my name’s Aaron.”

            After hesitating I answered, “Mine’s Michael, but all my friends call me Mikey.”

            He smiled and walked back to his locker, sat down and started working. I, on the other hand, was a bit surprised. I was caught off guard by him just telling me his name. Maybe I was just too into my homework, but it was startling none the less.

            After only a few minutes, he walked back over to me. “Hey, do you know how to do the math assignment?” he asked me.

            “Yeah, it’s not too hard I guess,” I said.

            “Do you think you could help me out a bit?”

            “No problem.”

            Now, I consider myself a pretty smart person, but I did not know how to do that math assignment at all. Why I said I knew what I was doing is still beyond me. When he sat down, I attempted to help, but I couldn’t do much since I didn’t even know what was going on. After a bit of a pause, I admitted I didn’t quite know how to do it.         

            “No problem, now we can figure it out together…or just be lost together,” he replied.

            This kid was unbelievable. He was so optimistic, despite the fact that he had less of a clue than me. The fact that he kept such a level head about it was remarkable. This one great thing about him was probably what made him so easy to talk to. I worry a lot, so to see someone be so loose about this sort of thing was enviable. With quite a bit of work and a few choice words, we finally finished the assignment. I got up to head to the back entrance where my mom had probably been waiting for quite some time. Before I left, I looked at Aaron and said, “See ya tomorrow.”

            “Later Mikey,” was his response. That, I never forgot. He considered me close enough to a friend to call me Mikey. Some of my friends still don’t call me Mikey.

            After that day, the two of us got to be really good friends. Amazingly, we both have an extremely similar thought pattern. It wasn’t so much that we thought alike, but that we could have long and pointless conversations about literally nothing. One of our conversations was simply about the word nothing and everything that went with it. This conversation is something we still come back to from time to time.